Action continued on the second day of the Nigeria Open 2017 with the final round of qualifying matches, men’s U21 singles round of 16 matches and the pre-rounds men’s doubles.
Unlike Wednesday where there were only a handful of breath-taking performances, day 2 of the tournament was filled with interesting match-ups which produced impressive performances. One of such performances has to be that of Tennison Reeth of India who has so far won all her games without losing a set and she continued in similar fashion on Thursday defeating her Nigerian counterpart, Falana Iyanuoluwa in four straight sets (4-0). The outstanding part of Tennison’s game is the ease with which she dispatches her opponents in about 20 minutes. She is one to watch-out for in the U21 women’s singles category.
Another interesting match was the one between Abrefa Derek of Ghana and Adeosun Adekunle of Nigeria in the U21 men’s singles. This particular match had the entire spectators in loud voice as the Nigerian and Ghanaian contingent supported their own but in the end, Adekunle resisted the Ghanaian to win 4-1.
The final highlight and most impressive of them all was the group qualifiers game between Oladiran Joshua of Nigeria and Egypt’s Helmy Mahmoud in the U21 men’s singles. After being initially pegged back by the Egyptian, Joshua won the match 4 sets to 1 only to lose the round of 16 to compatriot, Hassan Nurudeen while the Egyptian won by 3 sets to 2 in a closely contested round of 16 game against Nigeria’s Augustine Emmanuel.
In the end only 2 Nigerians qualified for the quarter-finals of the U21 men’s singles having defeated their compatriots. Tomorrow is another day as we bring you the best of action from the big guns as they open their campaign in the Seamaster ITTF Challenge Nigeria Open 2017.
